They cram themselves into small hatchbacks, spill over airline seats and travel the world on their own money for acclaim and camaraderie. Chris Stokel-Walker meets those competing to be the world's strongest man.
Standing 6ft 4in (1.93m) tall, weighing 21 stone (133kg) and with 22-inch biceps rippling out of his red t-shirt, Mark Felix is an immovable man mountain.
Felix was one of 12 men who competed at Gateshead's International Stadium for the right to attend the final of this month's World's Strongest Man competition in China.
The soft-spoken Grenadian, who lives near Accrington, is a seven-time World's Strongest Man competitor. At 47, he is older than many strongmen.
"With strongman training you need to get everything involved - from power lifting, to Olympic lifting, to general bodybuilding training," he explains.
A strongman event can see competitors loading a vehicle with heavy items, the yoke, where they carry 1,000lbs (454kg) 30m in 60 seconds, the deadlift, the shield carry, repetition lifting of a log, and the distinctive Atlas stones event.
A tweeted picture from Felix of a tuck box he had prepared for the contest shows a collection of almonds, chocolate, blueberries and oat flapjacks, alongside energy drinks.
"We have nuts and plenty of fruits and veg," he says. Felix's daily diet consists of six meals a day, accumulating 7,500 calories in all.
There's a lot of waiting around, he explains, in airports, hotels and motorway service stations on the way to and from competitions.
Though Felix is one of the best-known names in the UK sport, he sometimes works odd jobs as a plasterer when he takes time away from competitions to let his body recover.
Fellow competitor Lloyd Renals is an NHS physio. With a bald head, large beard and calves as big as many people's thighs, Renals looks rather like the stereotype of a lumberjack.
When Renals taps out a text on his mobile phone, it looks tiny in his hands.
Comments:
Strong men are amazing athletes. To accumulate so much muscle and maintain it requires many calories. (Some strong men have to keep eating otherwise they can lose muscle mass).
Strong men are amazing athletes. To accumulate so much muscle and maintain it requires many calories. (Some strong men have to keep eating otherwise they can lose muscle mass).
When the emphasis is on strength and a little on stamina there is little interest in cutting.
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